On the morning of October 23rd, former NBA player and current head coach of the Portland Trailblazers Chauncey Billups was arrested by the FBI for ties to an illegal gambling operation. Along with Billups was current NBA point guard for the Miami Heat Terry Rozier who had been under speculation of illegal sports gambling for over a year.

Rozier and Billups are 2 of 31 defendants who have been tied to swindling money for the mob between poker games and sports gambling. The defendants had been running rigged poker operations with wireless cheating technology in multiple cities. These cities included Hamptons, Las Vegas, Miami, and Manhattan. The athletes were used to lure people in to play the games whilst dealers were in on rigging the games. Victims lost nearly 7.5 million dollars throughout the operation on card games alone. Billups and Rozier’s profits or takeaway from that total is unknown. Billups was listed as a “player” at the table games dating back to before he was a coach, around 2019. The games resulted in 100s of thousands of dollars in losses from victims all over the country. Over the 2024-25 season Billups made a 4.7 million dollar salary from the Trailblazers and had career earnings of over 100 million dollars in his 17 year career.

Rozier is being targeted more specifically for his playing antics and passing this off to bettors. Rozier would give out tips on when he would leave games early for an “injury.” This would allow bettors to take the under on his projections and cash in big when he left the game. Groups would place over $200,000 in bets on his under on games he left early. Rozier’s most specific instance was on March 23rd, 2023 vs the New Orleans Pelicans. Rozier reportedly informed his childhood friend Deniro Laster that he would be exiting the game early. Laster and some of his friends placed hundreds of thousands of dollars on his underperformance and cashed in big after Rozier left the game after 10 minutes due to “foot discomfort.”